[B-Greek] Mt. 28:17 hOI DE EDISTASAN
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at juno.com
Mon Apr 17 09:37:58 EDT 2006
On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:02:28 +1000 (EST) Albert & Julia Haig
<albert_and_julia at yahoo.com.au> writes:
> >>> [RB] So how would Greeks have heard Mt 28:17? OI DE 'and others'
> DE marks a change and OI means a different group.
>
> >> [Me] OK, I see the point now. So is it impossible that the DE
> marks a change of topic from faith to doubt? Why?
>
> > [CC] It marks a shift from focus upon those (of the disciples) who
> responded in faith to at least two others (of the disciples) who
> responded with doubt.
>
> I think the above sequence of quotes, and elsewhere in my post,
> makes clear that I now agree with you on this; but the fact that the
> "but some doubted" reading is probably correct *does not* mean that
> we cannot explore other possibilities also. I was just asking
> whether the other reading was possible, even granted that it is
> unlikely. Apparently you don't think so; but you haven't given me
> any reason, just restated the more likely reading which is no longer
> in dispute. I'm asking if there's a specific reason DE can't mark a
> contrasting antithesis of the "they were X, but they were also Y"
> kind. Consider the English sentence, "they were rich, but they were
> also poor". Couldn't the word "but" be DE in Greek? If so, isn't the
> alternative of Mt. 28:17 still a possibility, even if a less likely
> one?
_____________
DE does mark some distinction as has been noted, but what you are
proposing seems to be not so much a distinction as a contrast. DE is not
a strong adversitive but "a marker connecting a series of closely related
data . . ." (BDAG, s.v. "DE"). For what you are proposing it seems more
likely that ALLA, a stronger adversitive would be used. See Mt 9.24
ELEGEN, "ANAXWREITE, OU GAR APEQANEN TO KORASION ALLA KAQEUDEI"
He said, "Depart for the girl is ** not dead BUT sleeps ** "
george
gfsomsel
___________
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